


For Those in Peril On the Sea

by glorious_spoon



Series: Hurt/Comfort Bingo 2018 [3]
Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Drowning, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Pre-Relationship, Rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-06-22 14:27:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15583929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glorious_spoon/pseuds/glorious_spoon
Summary: An undercover mission on a yacht goes very wrong, and this time Peggy is the one in need of rescue.





	For Those in Peril On the Sea

**Author's Note:**

> For a tumblr prompt by @laylainalaska, who prompted: _CPR/rescue breathing for the Agent Carter trio_
> 
> Fills the CPR/rescue breathing square on my H/C Bingo card.
> 
> (Also, I have taken some artistic liberties with the realities of drowning here, although probably nothing worse than what canon has done).

Clouds were starting to roll in as the sun sank behind the western horizon, leaving the ocean stone-gray in the deepening dusk. Daniel shifted his weight to take some pressure off his aching leg and lifted the binoculars again. Aleksei Ivanovich’s private yacht was little more than a pale smudge on the horizon. He hated being so far away when Peggy was in there without backup, but this was as close as they could get without risking discovery.

“No sign of her,” he murmured, peering at the deck of the ship. There were a couple of thugs in dark suits and shoulder holsters pacing by the rails, but that was it. No Peggy.

On the other side of the battered little boat they’d hired from a deeply suspicious local fisherman, Jack didn’t even lift his head. He was sprawled out with both feet kicked up on a bench, uncharacteristically rumpled in heavy canvas trousers and a soft-looking sweater that hung a little too loose on his lanky frame. Two days worth of stubble shaded his cheeks and his blond hair fell messily across his forehead without pomade to tame it, and it was— unnerving, in a way that Daniel couldn’t put his finger on, to see him like this.

The last (in fact, the only) time he’d seen Jack out of his immaculate armor of oiled hair and pressed suits and polished shoes had been in the hospital, when he’d been gray-faced and weak, looking like a stiff breeze might knock him over. Maybe that was it.

He lifted the binoculars again. “It’s taking too long. She should have signaled by now.”

“Relax, Sousa. Carter’s a big girl, she can take care of herself.”

“Yeah, I know she can. That’s not what I—” he broke off, peering at the far-off tableau. “Something’s happening.”

The guards had spun around, guns lifting. A sudden spill of light from the cabin door, and Peggy tumbled out, grappling with another guard— no, two more guards— a flurry of striking limbs and viciously controlled violence in an elegant red silk dress.

“Shit,” Daniel gasped. “She’s been made. Jack—”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jack shoot upright, lazy sprawl forgotten, and a moment later the motor coughed to life, jolting the small boat forward before he compensated.

“Peggy’s gonna kill you,” Daniel said, without looking away from the scene. An awful helplessness itched at him, a stupid but very strong urge to dive over the side of the boat and swim as hard as he could for the yacht. For Peggy. Who was doing _fine_ on her own; as he watched, she put one of the hired goons on his back with a hard strike to his throat, yanking the gun out of his hands as he fell. “We’re supposed to stay out of sight.”

“Yeah, well, she can yell at me in person after we rescue her. If she wanted to be discreet, she shouldn’t be starting brawls on the main deck. This was supposed to be an undercover operation. Hold on.”

“What?”

“ _Hold on_ ,” Jack snapped again, and revved the motor. The nose of the boat kicked up, jolting Daniel back hard enough that he would have toppled over if he hadn’t grabbed the seat edge. Icy spray peppered his face and the waves thumped against the keel; it was almost impossible to keep his focus on what was happening up on the deck of the yacht. He hadn’t heard any gunshots, but he probably wouldn’t have, not from this distance, not with the roar of the motor a few feet from his ear.

There was a sputtering cough, the sudden stink of burning oil, and Jack swore explosively.

“What is it?” Daniel asked without turning. He could still see a flurry of red silk through the lenses, another thug collapsing. Peggy was holding her own.

“Goddamn motor,” Jack said. There was another puff of acrid smoke, and the motor sputtered and died. “Piece of shit. Let me if I can...”

He trailed off with a grunt. Daniel glanced over to see him yanking at the grimy motor hood, then looked back at the ship. Peggy was—

Peggy was _falling_ , her body limp, bright skirts like a streak of flame against the white bulkhead. She hit the water soundlessly, without making any effort to control the dive, and Daniel jolted forward involuntarily, an awful noise choking off in the back of his throat.

She didn’t come back up.

Behind him, Jack said, “I think there’s something wrong with the— what?”

Daniel swallowed hard, then said, in a voice that didn’t sound at all like his own, “She went in the water. She—” _hadn’t come back up_ , he wasn’t going to say it out loud. He shucked his jacket off, reached for his shoes, had one half-unlaced before Jack interrupted him.

“You gotta be kidding me, Sousa. No way are you swimming that.”

“Peggy went in the water,” Daniel said through gritted teeth. He’d been a good swimmer as a kid. The only swimming he’d done since he’d lost his leg had been lazy laps around the pool at Stark’s estate, but it wasn’t like any of that fucking mattered.

She hadn’t come up.

“Yeah, I got that,” Jack said, and bent to yank off his own shoes. “I’ll get her. You get the motor working.”

Before Daniel could snap something in response to that brusque order, he’d stepped up onto the edge of the gunwale in his stocking feet and flung himself into the water with surprising grace. An instant later he resurfaced, cutting through the waves with long, smooth strokes. Daniel gaped after him for a couple of seconds, then forced himself to look away, to stop peering into the water like he could force Peggy to resurface with the power of his mind, to _focus._

The choke had been bumped somehow, but when he pulled the lever to open it back up, the damn thing still wouldn’t start. It coughed to life for an instant, then died again. Daniel slammed the heel of his hand into the painted metal hull, glanced back toward the yacht. Nobody was shooting, at least. He could make out a pale dot that had to be Jack’s head, but nothing else. It was too dark to see much, too far away without the binoculars—

Focus, damn it.

Spark plugs. It could be the spark plugs, since it sure as hell didn’t look like Sergei the fisherman was one for proper engine maintenance. Sure enough, when he pulled them out, they were all gummed up and corroded. A good scrub with a piece of rough cloth of dubious origin got the contacts clean again. He replaced them and tried the motor again, and it rumbled unenthusiastically to life.

Thank fucking Christ.

The binoculars were still on the floor of the boat. He scooped them up and peered at the spot where Peggy had gone in. The deck of the yacht was a flurry of light and motion, but so far nobody seemed to have noticed a single decrepit-looking fishing boat floating off the starboard side.

There was no sign of Jack, or of Peggy.

The ocean stretched out, choppy waves the color of liquid mercury meeting at some indistinct point in the distance with a hazy gray sky, and there was no sign of either of them. Salt spray pricked his eyes, and he wiped his face on his sleeve, revved the motor carefully, pulling slowly through the dark water and trying hard not to consider any of a dozen awful possibilities.

A splash out in the water, the sound of something surfacing a hundred feet to the left of where he’d been expecting. Daniel’s heart jumped in his chest, an awful, painful kind of hope, and he maneuvered the boat in a shallow turn toward the noise just as Jack’s head broke the surface. Then Peggy’s, her pale face slack, her dark hair spreading out in tendrils through the water.

“Is she—”

“Just help me get her in the boat,” Jack said. “We have to get out of here.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Daniel muttered. His hands felt fumbling and clumsy as he caught Peggy under the shoulders, hauling her up into the boat. She seemed heavier than she should have been in her waterlogged dress, her limbs bumping limply against the metal hull. He cradled her head gently as he laid her down on the deck. Water streamed from her hair; her lips were parted, her eyes closed, a bruise darkening her temple. He couldn’t tell if she was breathing.

There was a thump and a curse as Jack tumbled over the gunwale, and then he was there at Daniel’s shoulder, leaning over to hold his hand under her nose. He swore again, softly and vehemently.

“Is she breathing?" Daniel asked His own chest felt constricted, like he couldn’t get enough air into it.

“Get us moving,” Jack said without looking at him.

“The hell I will,” Daniel snapped. “Peggy—”

“I’ll take care of her,” Jack said, his hands steady and assured as he arranged Peggy’s limbs, tilting her head back. He seemed like he knew what he was doing, at least. “Do you trust me?”

Daniel swallowed hard.

“I trust you,” he said, and turned back to the motor. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Jack tilting Peggy’s chin back, leaning down to press his mouth to her slack lips, pushing air into her lungs. Rescue breathing. He’d been in the Navy; he knew how to deal with drowning victims. Hopefully. Because they were an hour’s drive at least from anything resembling proper medical care, and if Jack couldn’t get her breathing again—

He cut that thought off before it could fully form, pulling the boat away from the with what felt like agonizing slowness, watching in his peripheral vision as Jack bent over her again. She was so still and quiet that she seemed like a wax sculpture of a woman. Like Jack was trying to push breath and life back into a corpse.

God, please no.

A gagging noise, a sharp cough, and then a flurry of motion. Daniel turned back in time to see Jack rolling Peggy over onto her side as she coughed again and vomited saltwater across the deck. She sucked in a choking breath, then coughed again. She was breathing. She was _breathing._

Daniel let go of the tiller; he was halfway across the deck before he even knew what he was doing. Peggy was still coughing hard, her eyes shut, when he fell to his knees at her side. He put a shaking hand out, rested it on her heaving shoulder. “Peggy. Peggy!”

“Daniel,” she murmured, the end of his name getting lost in another fit of coughing. Distantly, he was aware of Jack sitting back on his heels, clearing out of the way, but all of his attention was on Peggy.

“Oh, God, Peggy.” He rubbed his hand up and down her arm, still shaking. “Jesus. I thought—” He couldn’t say it.

“Well,” she rasped at length. “I suppose that might have gone better.”

“You got a hell of a gift for understatement, Marge,” Jack said, standing. Daniel breathed out a shaky laugh, leaned down to press his lips to her wet hair. She smelled unpleasantly of saltwater and a faint sour tinge of bile, and he couldn’t possibly care less.

Above them, Jack said, “I’m gonna get us out of here. Sousa, keep her on her side. Might be more water coming up.”

Daniel glanced up at him, but he was already walking back toward the stern, leaving wet footprints on the weathered deck.

Peggy was coughing again, her body convulsing against him. He steadied her, held her hair back from her face as she brought more saltwater up.

“You okay?” he murmured.

“That,” she coughed. “That is remarkably unpleasant.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet.” He rubbed a hand up and down her back, wet silk catching at his fingers. Beneath them, the boat began to bump along as Jack got the motor going. Daniel risked another glance back at the yacht, but there was no shouting and, more importantly, no _shooting_.

The mission looked like a bust, but at least they were all making it out in one piece. It could have been worse. It could have— God. It could have been so much worse.

Jack was maneuvering the boat back toward the jagged edge of the cliffs. There was a little inlet there that wasn’t visible from the sea, a rocky beach that they could pull up on.

Peggy turned, hooking an arm around his neck with surprising strength to pull herself upright.

“Uh,” Daniel said. “Are you sure you should—”

“It was just a dunking,” she said, still in that worryingly breathless rasp. “Really, Daniel. I’m quite alright.”

“I think I’m gonna agree with Thompson on this one,” Daniel said, after an astonished moment. “You have a talent for understatement. God, Peggy. You could have—”

“But I didn’t,” she interrupted gently. “You got to me in time.”

“Jack did.”

Jack glanced back toward them at the sound of his name, then turned away almost as quick, the line of his profile unreadable as he peered into the gloom, his hand steady on the tiller. The cliffs towered overhead, blocking out the last of the light and enveloping them in darkness as the little boat slipped into the cove. Jack slowed the motor as they approached the beach, then cut it entirely, hopping out into knee-deep water to drop the anchors. It was high tide, at least, so if they beached it now it ought to be safe until they could direct the fisherman back to retrieve it.

He wouldn’t be happy, but it was still probably their best option. Especially given that Peggy looked wan and gray despite her assurances. Daniel didn’t know that much about the treatment for near-drowning, but she should probably be in a hospital.

Rocks scraped beneath them, the water lapping at the metal hull as Jack waded back over to their side. His hair was dark with water, plastered to his face, which seemed carved out of shadows in the dim light.

“Need a hand, Carter?” he asked.

“I,” Peggy began, moving like she was actually trying to stand up before collapsing against Daniel. Sounding annoyed, she added, “Yes. I suppose I do. If you don’t mind.”

Jack’s smile was a sudden slice of white in the darkness. “Don’t worry. I know full well you can beat me up with one hand tied behind your back. Sousa, you want to—”

“Yeah,” Daniel said. Peggy slung an arm over his shoulders so that he could heave her up. They made their staggering way over to the edge of the boat, where she transferred her arm to Jack. After a few fumbling moments during which neither of them seemed to know where to put their hands, Jack just reached in and swung her up into his arms, bridal-style. Peggy yelped, her bare feet kicking out in an aborted flail, then clung to him.

“Don’t get any ideas,” she said, half-sharp, half-laughing.

Jack made a face that Daniel couldn’t interpret. “Believe me, I won’t. Sousa, you good?”

Daniel peered into the dark water. It was about knee-high on Jack, who was taller than him. It wouldn’t be an easy slog through that back to shore, but he could manage it. Probably. “Yeah, I can handle it.”

Getting off the boat and up to dry land wasn’t pleasant, but he managed it without losing his balance on the slippery stone. He found Jack and Peggy collapsed on the edge of the shoreline, two dark shapes against the deepening night. He could barely make out their faces.

“Shoulda brought a flashlight,” he said.

“There’s one in the boat,” Jack said. He made an abortive move to stand, and Peggy put a hand on his elbow, stilling him. “Carter? You okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said. Her voice still had a worrying rasp to it and she hadn’t managed to sit all the way up. Jack snorted expressively as Daniel dropped onto the damp earth next to them, and Peggy added, “I _will_ be fine, rather. Thank you, Jack.”

“Don’t thank me. Sousa would have kicked my ass if I’d let you drown.”

“Mm. I’m sure that was all that was motivating you.”

Jack breathed out a laugh. Peggy was still leaned up against him, close enough that when Daniel put an arm around her from the other side, his knuckles bumped against Jack’s side, his wet sweater skin-warm and slightly rough to the touch. Jack twitched at the contact, but didn’t move away. For several minutes, the two of them just stayed there, bracketing Peggy between them. Daniel rested his cheek on her wet hair, listened to her rasping breaths, Jack’s quieter breathing, the both of them warm and safe and _here._

“I guess we’re going to have to figure out another way to get those shipping manifests,” Jack murmured eventually. His arm had slipped around Peggy as well, his palm resting in the center of her back. Peggy hadn’t made even a token effort at shrugging him off. There was some revelation in that, something important, but it could wait. “What a damn headache.”

“Mm,” Peggy said, and shifted against them, freeing her hands. “Actually.”

“Actually, what?”

“Did you know that Mrs. Jarvis is remarkably talented at sewing hidden compartments into fashionable clothing? In fact—” There was a rustle, wet fabric moving, her elbow bumping Daniel’s ribs as she pulled at her bodice in a way that would have given them both an eyeful if it had been just a little lighter out. “I happen to be wearing just such a dress right now. Here you are, Chief Thompson.”

Jack made a startled noise as she slapped something into his hand, then suddenly laughed. “Not even wet. You’re a piece of work, Peggy.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Her body quaked slightly, and Daniel thumped her back before realizing that she was laughing, not coughing. A bubble of mirth rose in the back of his throat, and then he was laughing too, helplessly, gasping against her tangled hair, her wet clothes bleeding damp through the side of his shirt and Jack’s arm a line of heat against his where they were both holding her between them, close and safe.

They still had to flag down a ride, and Peggy definitely needed a hospital, and there was a case that needed building, and— he thought— a conversation that he and Peggy maybe ought to have, but for now—

For now, just for a minute, he let himself just hold on.


End file.
